Summary: Some Properties of the General n­Trailer
Claudio Altafini \Lambda
Optimization and Systems Theory
Royal Institute of Technology
SE­10044, Stockholm, Sweden
e­mail: altafini@math.kth.se
tel: +46 8 790 7507
fax: +46 8 225 320
July 19, 2000
Abstract
If some of the trailers of the so­called n­trailer system are connected via a kingpin
hitch, the kinematic model of the system is more complicated that in the standard case.
However, something can still be said about the structural properties of the system, like
controllability. The more complicated equations can be interpreted in terms of virtual
steering wheels placed on the off­axle joints with steering angle which is a nonlinear
feedback from the original configuration state. Quite remarkably, the extra singularities
of the system have an explanation in terms of these virtual steering wheels. This is
also sufficient to assert that the general n­trailer problem can be embedded into the
corresponding multisteering n­trailer system. The multi­chained form available for
this last system can be recovered also for the general n­trailer if we replace the extra